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For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes
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Do you set it up differently for road and gravel/mixed surfaces? If so, what do you change? Wheelset? Pedals? Gearing?
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [Dgconner154] [ In reply to ]
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gravel position: 1cm higher bars.

gravel pedals:eggbeaters
road pedals: speedplay zero

road gearing: 52/36x11/28
gravel gearing: 42x11/36
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [NordicSkier] [ In reply to ]
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NordicSkier wrote:


gravel position: 1cm higher bars.

gravel pedals:eggbeaters
road pedals: speedplay zero

road gearing: 52/36x11/28
gravel gearing: 42x11/36

Cool thanks. Do you run the same wheels/tires?
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [Dgconner154] [ In reply to ]
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I've ridden gravel on Conti 23C's, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Currently running Panaracer 38C (measures 36mm) on my gravel.
Road bike is currently 25C tubeless (rim brakes).
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [Dgconner154] [ In reply to ]
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Right now I only switch out tires (Rubaix 32mm for road hardpack/WTB Resolute 42 for real gravel). Getting a dedicated road wheelset soon and will run Conti GP 4000s 28s for road and stay with the Resolutes for non-road-for now. I may go to a stem that gets me more upright for gravel...we'll see. I am seriously considering getting satellite Di2 shifters so I can shift from the flats though as that's where I mostly have my hands on gravel. I do swap out pedals/shoes if it's a longer road ride. FWIW, I'm on a Giant TCX.
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [Dgconner154] [ In reply to ]
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1cm higher(stack) 1cm shorter (reach) couple mm lower on the saddle too

Road gearing 52/36 11-30t cassette
Gravel Gearing 40t 10-42 cassette

Road Pedal - Look compatible
Gravel Pedal - exepdo CRX Pro (basically spd)
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [Dgconner154] [ In reply to ]
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I swap wheelsets out but otherwise leave the bike the exact same same:
28mm Specialized Armadillo on Stan's Grail for road
38mm Specialized Trigger Pro 2Bliss on I9/Stan's Crest for offroad
Gearing: 46/36 with 11-32
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [Dgconner154] [ In reply to ]
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gravel position: 1cm higher bars.

gravel pedals:eggbeaters
road pedals: Garmin V3

road gearing: 50/34 x 11/25
gravel gearing: 38 x 11/36

My road and gravel bike are literally exactly the same outside of the bars - saddle type/style included and its very easy to go back and fourth between the bikes.
Last edited by: teddygram: Apr 29, 19 7:46
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [Dgconner154] [ In reply to ]
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i think what you'll find for most serious gravelers is a pretty close hewing to road position. i likewise am probably 1cm shorter and 1cm higher, but i think that 1cm shorter is somewhat due to the ergonomics of SRAM's hydraulic hoods (in my case).

wheels: what i'm hearing, and finding, is that a lot of folks who have both, say, a 700c/38mm set, and a 650b/50ish mm set, that it's hard to justify taking the fatty set up off the bike.

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [Dgconner154] [ In reply to ]
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Position and setup are the same other than a gravel bar and SPD pedals. Both are 1x with a 46 x 11-40 on road and 44 x 11-42 for gravel. I swap wheelsets around with road and gravel tires as the occasion warrants.
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [Dgconner154] [ In reply to ]
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The only thing I'll swap out is my wheel set. I have an awesome set from I9 I use for gravel since that's where I spend most of my time. I took the stock wheels and put a set of GP4k's on them for road riding. I made the mistake of riding with some roadie friends yesterday... it was supposed to be an easy ride so I didn't bother to swap wheels. I should have known better. 90 minute hammer fest trying to keep up with my gravel tires!
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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I think I didn't phrase the original question correctly. What I meant was, for those people who use one bike for both gravel and road riding, do you change wheelsets, pedals, etc. depending on the type of riding?

I'm considering selling my roadie and using my Crux for both road and gravel, but it seems like by the time I buy a second wheelset/tires/discs/etc. it might be easier and more cost-effective to just keep the roadie.
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [Dgconner154] [ In reply to ]
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Dgconner154 wrote:
I think I didn't phrase the original question correctly. What I meant was, for those people who use one bike for both gravel and road riding, do you change wheelsets, pedals, etc. depending on the type of riding?

I'm considering selling my roadie and using my Crux for both road and gravel, but it seems like by the time I buy a second wheelset/tires/discs/etc. it might be easier and more cost-effective to just keep the roadie.

yes. you do. they/we do. but i don't change to a road wheelset. i could. but i have a road bike. what i don't have yet is the 650b wheelset i want. when i get it my guess is that i'll find it hard to justify taking that off and replacing it with my 700c wheelset w/35mm to 42mm tires. but i don't know.

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [Toefuzz] [ In reply to ]
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Toefuzz wrote:
The only thing I'll swap out is my wheel set. I have an awesome set from I9 I use for gravel since that's where I spend most of my time. I took the stock wheels and put a set of GP4k's on them for road riding. I made the mistake of riding with some roadie friends yesterday... it was supposed to be an easy ride so I didn't bother to swap wheels. I should have known better. 90 minute hammer fest trying to keep up with my gravel tires!

I don't have a ton of long continuous gravel nearby so a lot of my riding will be a mix of pavement and gravel. I'm currently running Specialized Pathfinder 38's which are great for mixed surfaces, but for pure road riding I'm trying to decide if I should get a second wheelset or keep my roadie.
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [Dgconner154] [ In reply to ]
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Dgconner154 wrote:
...for those people who use one bike for both gravel and road riding, do you change wheelsets, pedals, etc. depending on the type of riding?


Just wheels for me. Three sets (700x32mm Refuse, 700x40 rambler, 650x2.1 Aspen)


edit - I'm likely to swap out the ramblers for 40mm refuse and change the 32s to 28
Last edited by: Tim_Canterbury: Apr 29, 19 8:36
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [ In reply to ]
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I only swap wheel sets, I have three of them :-)

Main training wheel-set: Hunt alloy rims, 38mm Hutchinson Override, Terrain: 50:50 fairly smooth gravel:road

"Vacation" training wheelset: Hunt carbon rims, 32mm Htuchinson Sektor, mainly road. However, depending on country roads can be bad. For example in Italy. Just returned from a trip to Ireland with the family. They would go from hotel to hotel by car, I go by bike. Logged two > 220km rides and several rides >120km. Need something robust but should still roll nicely.

Competition wheelset: Hunt carbon rims, 28mm Hutchinson Fusion 5 Performance. One of my two A-races: http://tourdesstations.ch/en/ultrafondo/

Always ride with road pedals, do not swap. I also have a real MTB. My gravel experience is more road oriented. Allows me to avoid certain critical road by bypassing on gravel road. Had too many close calls with a pure road bike, simply got scared and avoid certain roads.
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [Dgconner154] [ In reply to ]
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I'm pretty close to everybody else in this thread. Same stem and handlebars for road and gravel. Sometimes I'll drop 1 cm from stem length for CX season. Sometimes I wish my handlebars were 1 cm higher for really long days. I keep thinking more and more about that Shockstop stem. Even at 30 psi, my hands and wrists sometimes hurt for a bit afterwards.

Typically 42 front chainring for road and gravel. 38 for cyclocross. 11-40 or 11-34 cassette on my true 'gravel' tires that are 42 mm depending on what the course is. I have 8 wheelsets between my two CX bikes, so there's a big mix of tires and lots of cassettes in the basement. 28 mm Schwalbe Ones (measured 32 mm on mtb rims) as low as 45 psi can handle everything up to where I want to ride my gravel tires though. I'm thinking of putting on the Specialized Roubaix Pro 32's soon. Spec usually does a buy one get one 50% off this time of year on tires.

I have done some spirited group rides and haven't found the 42 to be a limiting factor, so I don't switch between 1x and 2x up front. If Ted King maxes out at a 44 on his bike, I can't see a situation where I'll ever need the 50 or 52 I see many people keeping on theirs.

Shimano road pedals if I know I won't be walking. Crank Brothers Candy pedals if there's any walking/hiking. I may be switching everything over to Expedo CXR soon.

My road bike rarely comes off the trainer anymore. My cx bikes can do just about anything.
Last edited by: dangle: Apr 29, 19 11:58
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [Dgconner154] [ In reply to ]
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For me, I just change wheelsets that have different tires - all wheelsets have the same 11-32 cassettes. I generally keep road pedals on, but if I'm doing a mixed surface race that is muddy and could have me off the bike, then I'll put mtn pedals on.

Wheelsets:

700x32 road
700x35 mostly road and light gravel
650x42 most used setup - can handle all surfaces quite well
650x48 mostly used for fast fire road where volume is needed due to high speed and rough surface

My bike is setup with 50x34 with 11-32 cassettes. I find this covers everything without wanting more gears on either end, and has awesome spacing. I really don't get the 1x for gravel trend. To me, mixed surface riding is the poster child for a 2x system as you encounter the biggest extremes, and benefit from tighter cassette spacing when cruising on the road.

_______________________________________________
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [Dgconner154] [ In reply to ]
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Exploro axs 46/35 x 10/33

Road - 130 -17 stem, conti gp5kTL 28s, look road pedals

Gravel shockstop 110 -6 stem, various tires depending on terrain, xtr pedals depending on terrain.
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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So what is Slowman looking for in a 650B wheelset?
Inquiring minds want to know.

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
Hunter S. Thompson
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [tri-tele] [ In reply to ]
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tri-tele wrote:
So what is Slowman looking for in a 650B wheelset?
Inquiring minds want to know.

i want a wider distance between the beads. i have a mavic wheelset now, a few years old, it's fine, nothing fancy, it's just to hard to put big tires on there. so, i'm more looking for a 25mm or so bead width instead of the 20mm or whatever that mavic rim is. otherwise i don't much care, in terms of weight or aero or whatever. if the hub is centerlock standard, decent inners, that's fine.

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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I've been very happy with a set of Nextie NXT27RM30 rims with 23.4 internals (the NXT27RM32 would get the 25mm internal you seek) laced to DT Swiss 240 hubs. Another option would be Stan's 27.5 Arch rims laced to ones hub of choice.

I guess the bottom line is looking at mtb rims when looking to mount mtb sized tires....

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
Hunter S. Thompson
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [Dgconner154] [ In reply to ]
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Dgconner154 wrote:
I think I didn't phrase the original question correctly. What I meant was, for those people who use one bike for both gravel and road riding, do you change wheelsets, pedals, etc. depending on the type of riding?

I'm considering selling my roadie and using my Crux for both road and gravel, but it seems like by the time I buy a second wheelset/tires/discs/etc. it might be easier and more cost-effective to just keep the roadie.

I have a couple of Road Bikes and my Gravel Bike is my newest of all my bikes.

I asked myself after a few rides on my Gravel bike why I wouldn't just sell all my road bikes and just purchase two different wheel sets for my Gravel bike. I find myself putting my Road pedals on my Gravel bike all the time and riding it, I might consider selling off some of my fleet in the future but for now its just easy to grab my road bike or my gravel bike and hit the road.
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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Slowman wrote:
tri-tele wrote:
So what is Slowman looking for in a 650B wheelset?
Inquiring minds want to know.


i want a wider distance between the beads. i have a mavic wheelset now, a few years old, it's fine, nothing fancy, it's just to hard to put big tires on there. so, i'm more looking for a 25mm or so bead width instead of the 20mm or whatever that mavic rim is. otherwise i don't much care, in terms of weight or aero or whatever. if the hub is centerlock standard, decent inners, that's fine.

In what way?...Just curious...

http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/
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Re: For those who mainly ride their gravel bikes [Tom A.] [ In reply to ]
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Tom A. wrote:
Slowman wrote:
tri-tele wrote:
So what is Slowman looking for in a 650B wheelset?
Inquiring minds want to know.


i want a wider distance between the beads. i have a mavic wheelset now, a few years old, it's fine, nothing fancy, it's just to hard to put big tires on there. so, i'm more looking for a 25mm or so bead width instead of the 20mm or whatever that mavic rim is. otherwise i don't much care, in terms of weight or aero or whatever. if the hub is centerlock standard, decent inners, that's fine.


In what way?...Just curious...

i have a set of IRC 47mm tires that i just have a dickens of a time mounting on these wheels. i've taken them into a shop i trust. same thing. they just won't go on well, and won't go on round.

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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